A Green Growing Thing
by Ione
Summary: Tauriel believes that she and her King have hated each other since she first entered his halls. In some ways, she is right. In others, she could not be further from the truth. A story of the Captain and her King, told in 500 word pieces. COMPLETE.
1. I

Tauriel is thirty-two years old. Whippet-cut by brambles, smeared with dirt and muck, muddled by spider venom, and still dripping tears, she is brought into the King's presence. This is their first meeting, but Tauriel is in no position to be honored by his great condescension in admitting one so young into his sight. She would give anything in the world—anything at all among all the wonders of the forest and all the tales of glories in the many kingdoms beyond—not to be kneeling before her King.

The King. She knows nothing else to call him; no one she knows has ever used his name.

A fresh burst of tears blinds her, and a stuttering sob stops her ears. Everyone she has ever known is dead. She knows this, though none of the Guard has told her so. Hiding in the hollow tree, her secret hideaway, surrounded by soft loam and skittering beetles, holding her breath until she felt her head and chest burst with the strain, she had survived.

She alone.

He is speaking to her, but she cannot hear him. She does not dare raise her eyes to his face, but even if she did, the tears would keep her from seeing anything other than a blur of flaxen hair and rust-red silk. The color reminds her of the dull amber of the maple trees surrounding her parents' garden, as well as the color of her hair, the hair Mother brushed with fifty sweeping strokes each night.

The tint is the essence of fall, the quintessential shade of her favorite season. It becomes the King well.

But this day has destroyed everything she loves. Nothing remains of Tauriel's life, of her brief, butchered childhood. So she hates the color, as she hates everything—no matter how insignificant—that brings to mind this day.

Tauriel is not brave enough to hate the King. She is too lowly, too insignificant for that.

But as the hours pass, his voice—even, measured, deep—and his questions wear away at her like water against a stone, she grows to dislike him. However many times she weeps, however much her escorts shift uncomfortably in their boots and suggest she be given time to rest, he persists. He must know, he says, how the spiders attacked. In what numbers. How the village militia responded. Why they were not successful.

Finally, the immediacy of her pain gives way to a curious cold numbness. Tauriel looks up at last, with clear eyes. And she sees her own dislike reflected back at her.

She does not understand it. In all the years that follow, Tauriel still does not come to understand it. But she knows it is true, she never doubts it. Though the King arrives at the decision to host her in his own palace, effectively adopting her as his ward though many families stand at the ready to take her, Tauriel sees the truth.

He dislikes her, as much as she does him.


	2. II

The days, months, and years that follow the dreadful day of the spider attack do as they are meant to. They blur the memories of terror and fear, and mute the dreadful pain that used to make Tauriel writhe at the recollection of her parents. Now, at thirty-six, it is only with effort that she recalls her mother's calm eyes—the exact shade of moss growing in the shade of strong trees—or her father's quick fingers winding through the glistening strings of his harp.

An elf's memory is supposed to be a perfect record, but Tauriel is glad that in this regard she seems to differ from her comrades. In the first few months after her new life began, she woke every night hoarse with screams, certain that the spiders had found her at last.

No, Tauriel is not sorry that she cannot remember some things. What makes her sorry is that she seems to have no control over what she _does_ recall.

She can recall, for example, every word the King—whose name she knows but is forbidden to use—has ever spoken to her. But she prefers to think of other things. Especially this morning.

There is dirt under her fingernails, sweat dripping from her hastily bound-up hair, and smudges of dirt mar the dark green fabric of her leggings and tunic. She has been in the garden since break of day, happily absorbed in planting a row of trees that she herself has cross-bred in the hotbeds for over a year. She believes they are strong enough now to withstand the sharp fall air, and blossom through the winter. The fresh flowers—before only available in spring and summer—can be brewed into all sorts of remedies.

The head gardener has given her the space for her experiment, with the head healer's blessing. They both warned her not to get her hopes too high. Many a trial like hers had been attempted before, with no success.

But Tauriel is certain her trees will thrive. Was it not her own father who had remarked on her skill with plants, and her mother who had insisted she be apprenticed to the village apothecary the moment she came of age?

Tauriel smiles at this memory. She is glad to think she will do her parents proud.

"Your studies appear to be proceeding apace."

Startled—she still startles easily—Tauriel trips over the nearest tree and uproots it as she drops to her knees. Some of the roots have snapped and she winces at the raw edges. This one will have to go back to the hotbeds.

"I believe so, your Majesty," she manages, "I wish never to disappoint you."

"As you should, child," he makes no move to descend into the garden. His white silk robe would not mix well with the dark, chilly earth. He stands like a pillar of starlight; though merely on the terrace above, he is entirely distant from her.

"I have hopes for you."


	3. III

"Think you that a feast is the right moment to discuss the deaths of my soldiers? Your poor judgment in this matter explains your failure in others."

Row upon row of elven nobility stretches between them. The few Sindar who followed the King out of the West are nearest. Their silver robes and gray-blue eyes shroud them in a celestial mist of beauty unreached by the Silvan courtiers who sit beside, garbed in more earthy greens and browns.

Tauriel—wearing her best gown of forest green and nervously adjusting a borrowed bronze circlet—is down near the foot of the long table, seated with the head gardener, invited as his guest. But Tauriel's ears serve her well. Even at such a distance, she can hear the precise quality of the King's irritation.

Even at such a distance, it makes her quail.

The rumors of the spiders' permanent nests near the forest road filtered into the palace just yesterday. Tauriel, busily tending the _athelas_ in the lower herb garden, heard every word that passed between two whispering guardsmen.

It seems that Tauriel's world is expanding even as Mirkwood itself seems to shrink. Her studies progress. At the young age of seventy-five, she now commands the lowest garden, responsible for the root vegetables that that supply the King's own table. It is an unheard-of honor for a child her age, and she tries to be worthy of it.

But she is still curious about the world outside, the world that used to be hers.

In bits and pieces, she learns. Gathering the early apples in the orchard, she sees a wounded elf stagger towards the gate with news of an ambush. Reading in the library, she listens as the Prince's tutor explains how the elves were first driven into the northeast corner of the forest.

And now, from the King's own lips, she hears that he will not attend the desperate need of his Captain.

She risks a glance up the table. Thranduil is brilliant in vermillion; his hair seems bone-white in comparison. It lies across his tunic in strands as pale and fragile as spider silk. The red of his robe is a match for the wine that has filled his cup without fail since the start of the feast. His eyes, however…they are still sharp, keen, and aware.

Tauriel stares at her plate, fearful that he might sense her gaze. She should not look at him, she should not think his name. She might sit at his table, but she is not of his kind. Nor will she ever be.

The King is speaking again, and his word is stone-carved law.

"At your last request, I gave you fifty from my Palace guard. If you claim defense is untenable with so many, perhaps there is another who does not think the same."

There is a pause before the Captain murmurs an apologetic response, and he excuses himself shortly thereafter.

Tauriel dares one last glance.

The King's goblet is full again.


	4. IV

Tauriel is too often in the shadows to enjoy being the center of attention, but it is her birthday and Thranduil has honored her with a feast of her own. It is a modest affair compared to others she has heard of—they are merely eating haphazardly from a well-stocked sideboard on the lower terrace—but it is more than enough. Too much notice makes her feel her status…and consequent isolation.

While several conversations swirl around her and she tries to be ready to put in a word, she thinks of how pointless it is for immortal beings to count their ages. Why should one hundred mark the first step along the path to adulthood?

The dwarves for example, who do not live more than six hundred years, do not count anyone younger than two hundred an adult. And elsewhere there are other traditions. Her interest in other races is an oddity, but she likes to think how things are different…beyond the bounds of Mirkwood.

"May I help you to more wine?"

She gulps down the swallow she has, barely avoiding a cough.

"Thank you, my Prince." She addresses the pale hand that grips the pitcher. Legolas may not be the figure of intimidation that his father is, but she is cautious.

"I drink to you tonight," his manner is easy; easy and unafraid. He need not measure his every word for fear of saying too much. "To your life as it has been and as it will be."

He drinks deeply. She follows his lead. It is her third glass of the strong drink and the heavy dizziness growing behind her eyes makes her careless. She studies his face more frankly than she would have dared otherwise.

He meets her gaze with a smile, one of such warmth it seems spun from sunlight. His eyes are the clear blue of pure water.

"I understand that your healing studies are progressing. My friend says you treated his knife wound three days past. There is hardly a mark."

"The cut was shallow," she wrestles down the grin that blooms with his praise, "Any competent healer could have done as much."

"Still," he toasts her with a tip of his glass. "I wonder that my Father did not choose you for the Guard, as he has done so many. You have the right build for an archer."

His eyes assess her thoroughly and Tauriel blushes. "I—it was always my parents' intention that I learn to heal. And my own inclination also."

"Come, my Son," Legolas turns without a start but Tauriel nearly drops her glass, "Not everyone has the skill to be a warrior like yourself."

The Prince laughs and makes some joking reply, but the King's attention is only half on him.

He looks her over as well.

His lip curls; his eyes narrow. She bows, blinking back sudden, unaccountable tears.

She does not look up as they move off together. Tauriel can only breathe when she is alone again.


	5. V

It does not often snow in Mirkwood. This morning is only the second occasion Tauriel can remember, even over a century. Not for nothing was this land once called "Greenwood", for it is blessed with protection from wintery gusts by the sheltering tree canopy above.

So when it does snow, it is a beautiful and treasured sight. Tauriel can barely keep her eyes on her work. Somehow dirt and roots seem less enthralling when the slanting ribbons of afternoon light are flecked with whirling diamond snowflakes, each one as unique as a precious gem.

Not everyone shares her devotion. On the target range below, the steady _thrum-thwock_ of archery practice has changed to laughter and shouts as a snowball fight rages. If Tauriel peers through the trellis, through the climbing vines, she can see them. Prince Legolas and his compatriots have divided into teams, protecting targets on opposing sides of the field.

Tauriel smiles as she watches him, leaning farther over the ledge than perhaps is wise. Her red hair is a ruby, a flame in the sun. He dances between throws, light as a feather and graceful as a dance.

Then, with a swift _splat_, his snowball bursts on the enemy's side.

In the pause between rounds, Legolas—perched atop a target and nursing a cup of spiced wine—looks up and sees her. His wave is casual, but a clear invitation. Tauriel obeys it, and goes down.

She is keenly aware of how she looks. Her knees are filthy, her tunic is smudged. Still, she curtseys to the Prince with all the dignity she commands.

"Will you not join us, friend?"

How can he call her friend? It thrills her, but she would not call them such. She has several friends, all of whom she knows better than the Prince. And even if that did not matter…all of _his_ friends are standing beside him, noble born youths every one.

She does not belong there.

"I am afraid I would acquit myself poorly."

"How is that?" Legolas brushes aside her objection and tosses her a packed snowball. "Try." There is a look in his eyes that reminds Tauriel of his father, and she senses she is no longer playing a simple game.

She swallows. Tauriel is not unskilled, but as the entire company starts cheering her on, she knows she will miss. With a face glowing nearly as bright as her hair, she turns, aims, and lets fly.

A frantic prayer to Eru wings heavenward at the same moment. She cannot breathe.

With a _splat_ almost as resonant as the Prince's, her ball explodes atop his. She gasps, wild joy as strong in her as fear had just been. It is an impressive throw, clear across the length of the field.

When she swings back, radiant with success and basking in the acclaim of the crowd, Legolas swings down from the target to clap a hand on her shoulder.

"You see? There is more to you than you believe."


	6. VI

Summer arrives and Mirkwood bursts into bloom. Green leaves, golden sunlight, flowers in myriad shades of scarlet, ivory, and lapis become the colors of the forest's ever-changing tapestry. The entire Palace flees the halls of carven wood to spend the days outdoors, in parties of pleasure.

Tauriel does likewise; harvesting river reeds, hunting mushrooms in crooked tree stumps, or reading in glens carpeted with fresh grass.

As she wanders, always near the safety of the Palace guard in their watchtowers above, she wonders what it would be like if she became one of them. With combat training, she could journey all the way to Mirkwood's end. She could surface from beneath the ocean of trees and stand on the plains bathed in crystalline starlight.

Tauriel shakes her head and banishes the thought. Her parents…they had encouraged her to heal, not hurt. She cannot betray their memory.

She hears people coming down the road, but there is an edge of panic in their shouts. So Tauriel runs straight down the hillside, leaping over exposed roots and dodging around tree trunks.

It is the King's party, returned from a picnic. Tauriel had watched it leave the Palace that morning, each person alive with spirit and good-humor.

Now that has disappeared. Only fear remains.

The King gallops ahead, his white steed lathered and shaking. His sword is drawn; viscous ooze drips down its length. The Prince comes next, and riding pillion with him is a young girl. The Prince's arm is the only thing keeping her in the saddle.

Tauriel sees her pale face, the tracery of black creeping through the veins in her arms. She knows the signs of spider venom well.

"Your Majesty!"

He reins in, eyes settling on Tauriel. "Speak."

"If you bring her down, I can treat her here," she has no time for niceties. There is blood seeping from the girl's nose and mouth.

Thranduil nods to his son and before he finishes the gesture, Legolas has laid the girl at Tauriel's feet.

She has no time to be nervous, no time to take pride in their trust. From the pouch around her waist she draws herbs; from her flask she pours water. When the poultice is ready, she massages it into the wound, pressing down on the injured skin to either side of the pincer's bite.

Words spill from her mouth in a rhythm that echoes from the abundance of nature around them. The bite closes because the Greenwood wishes it so. Tauriel is only its servant, only its conduit. The power is not hers to keep, only to borrow.

So she returns it to the earth when the task is done, when the girl's breathing has evened and her seizures have stopped.

Then she steps back and bows to her King. "Thank you."

He kneels beside the girl and feels her pulse, touches the fresh color that heats her cheeks. He speaks to her, not to Tauriel. He does not look up.

"It was well done."


	7. VII

Work in the gardens is a solitary affair. Tauriel is usually alone with her spade and shovel, stooping up long rows of potatoes and down longer furrows of carrots, plucking weeds and scooping fresh earth over new-sprouted life. In isolation thus, strange thoughts wander through the restless firmament of her mind.

She often wonders about the seed of her nature and how it too will grow.

What is she to become? A healer, a gardener, a scholar, or something else entirely?

Healers live with a single pure purpose, much the way a lily's whole being is expressed in the flawless white star of its bloom. They are devoted to others, to fixing what has been broken.

Tauriel feels right when she makes people whole. But working only in the face of pain is discomfiting.

Gardeners, though. They are closest to nature, they grow in hearty profusion like violets. They are humble flowers, but no less lovely than their taller, prouder comrades for their humility.

Tauriel can happily spend months being the watchful midwife to plants and herbs as they grow. Yet she is always glad of summer when the plants thrive and she is free to wander and roam.

Could she be a scholar? Many nights she spends in the library, going from volume to volume as she seeks to expand her horizons beyond the limit of what she knows, of what those around her know. Yet in her heart she knows she has not the dedication of a born scholar, who must climb ever upwards—like ivy—in her search for truth.

Tauriel is one hundred and eighteen, but still has little knowledge of herself. She enjoys many things, but the singular passion of her life has yet to reveal itself.

One possibility remains in her mind, no matter how she thinks on her parents' unspoken objections. But this possibility hinges on the question: can she harden herself enough to become a warrior?

Elves, though sometimes viewed as weak and yielding by other races, can be poisonous as the holly that shines with the verdant hue of summer even in winter's icy grip.

King Thranduil is perfect evidence of this. On the sparring field, he fights with a refined, deadly grace. He can take on a dozen opponents and his clear eyes only narrow with focus as his double swords flash in dazzling patterns between his enemies' blades.

The King is thousands of years her senior. He knows the truth of his nature. His is to be the ruthless sword that holds the line inviolate between his people and the dangers of the world beyond.

Is she strong enough for that?

The King…ruthless is a strong word, but it is right. He has fought and fought again, and his battles have turned him hard and cold as the white gems he prizes.

So Tauriel wonders as she weeds:

Can she not be both warrior and healer, both sword and shield? Or are they two diverging pathways in the wood?


	8. VIII

"Years ago, this village was the site of an unprovoked massacre."

Eighty-six years ago to the day, Tauriel's childhood had ended in an hour's worth of pain and terror.

"The spiders claimed the lives of more than sixty of our people."

Normally on this anniversary, she arranges flowers and autumn leaves in her mother's wooden vase, humming one of her father's songs as she does so. She prays peace for their souls, roaming free in the halls of Mandos. She considers what they would think of her life; whether they would approve the choices she has made.

"Today, we exact our vengeance. Today, we plant new life atop the death and destruction those vile creatures left behind."

The anniversary of their deaths is Tauriel's chance to keep account of her life. It is a precious day to her, one she guards jealously and keeps sacred. So what strange coincidence it is that Tauriel is back in her village on the same day it had been destroyed?

"The battle was hard-fought and well-won."

It is rare for the Guard to bring along a healer on a sortie, but this raid was too dangerous to do otherwise. And it was a wise choice. In the aftermath of the battle, Tauriel has several poison stings to treat, a broken leg to set, and many cuts and bruises to bind.

"As this battle has been won, so will many others! We will reclaim our land from these enemies of light!"

The elf under Tauriel's care cheers with the rest of his party, though he winces the next moment from the pain of his torn shoulder. She hushes him gently, but the King's words have stirred her too. She finishes tying the bandage with a swift double knot and gives the soldier a dose of poppy tincture for the pain.

With everyone else focused on where the King stands, radiant as a star at midday in full silver armor, she turns away unseen.

As she wanders past the ruins of houses and the dry fountain choked with leaves, the years fall away and she sees the faces of her old neighbors; she hears their voices. But the stench of arachnid blood and viscera is rank in the air, like a fetid swamp. It spoils her imagination and the gulf yawns again between her present and her past.

Tauriel stops. This is not what she wants to see; this is not how she chooses to remember her life that was. She cannot go forward, nor does she want to return to the party behind.

She wants to gather her flowers and sit quietly, communing with the souls of the departed.

There is no quiet to be had, but Tauriel does her best. A glass of wine is forced on her and she stands in the shadow of the tent and sips it rather than mingle with the raucous crowd. To all assembled, today is an unadulterated victory.

Hers is the only joy tainted by bitter recollections.


	9. IX

When the sunlight drips from the leaves above and shadows swell between the trees, Tauriel slips away and follows the path she knows so well. The front door of her house has fallen in, rotted from years of neglect. The windows are scabbed over by a crust of tough webbing; her knife cannot saw through it.

So she peers through the strands and swallows hard as the sight of her small bowl and spoon placed between her parents' larger dishes brings everything back before her.

They had been eating corn cakes and fruit. She can remember her mother laughing as she dribbled honey over Tauriel's dish; her father had leaned over and stolen some on the tip of his finger.

In the quiet of night, the susurrus of whispering leaves become her parents' voices.

But it is an illusion. They are dead.

A long, low cry breaks from between Tauriel's lips and she crouches underneath the window, hands plucking at the splintering wooden planks. What is she reaching for? Anything that house once held for her—love, comfort, family—is gone, and has been for years.

There is no regaining what she has lost.

"Soldier."

She cannot cry in front of him. Not again. Tauriel was weak when she was a child, but she has grown strong and tough as a nut since then. She will not cry in front of him.

"Your Majesty," she stands, bows. It is easier to focus on the tips of his black leather boots—stained with mud and darker things—than his pale face and eyes. "I am no soldier."

"No, you are not," he agrees. The edge of his cloak flutters as he turns to look out over the rest of the village. Tauriel looks with him.

It is a melancholy, disheartening sight. The bodies of many spiders lie curled where they fell before sharp swords, but what is their reward? No house here is fit for habitation; the gardens are grown over and the ground is fouled.

And only danger lies in the trees ahead. From here to the edge of the forest is spider territory. Many a battle like this one will be needed before peace once more sits in splendor in the Greenwood.

As she stands behind her King and considers the ruin and waste, it bursts upon Tauriel with the swiftness of rising dawn that she finally knows her mind.

"With your permission, your Majesty," she begins, slowly, speaking to his unmoving back, "I may one day become one."

If she is to be one of the Guard—who must stand stolid in the face of goblins and other horrors—she knows she must be fearless before King Thranduil. She breathes deep and stands straight and tall, shoulders thrown back and chin high. Her heart beats quick and light, like the flutter of a hummingbird's wings.

He does not face her. But she sees his long nose and heavy brow in profile as he nods, once.

"We shall see."


	10. X

Tauriel has never feared failure. Her goals have always been modest, her skills more than adequate. Besides, growing vegetables and grinding herbs require little native talent, nor are there serious consequences should she fail to do either.

During the few months that follow her conversation with the King, Tauriel seems to live no differently than before. She weeds the garden beds, she prunes hedges. She delivers tender buds and fresh herbs to the healing houses and watches attentively as they are worked into different remedies and poultices.

To most of the Palace, those who see Tauriel as simply a figure in the background of the glorious comings and goings of the King and his Court, her life is calm as a still pond.

That undisturbed surface gives no hint of the raging currents underneath.

Her arm aches as she pulls the string back, but in the struggle for a smooth draw her hand trembles and she loses sight of the target. Even had she taken an arrow, her aim would have gone wide. She strangles a curse as it screams up her throat, straightens her shoulders, and tries again.

Tauriel holds the pull this time, breathing as evenly as she can manage while she counts to ten. She can no longer feel the muscles in her upper arm, but the string feels like a line of fire against her raw fingers.

The sharp _thrum_ of release vibrates like a bell in the quiet morning air.

Sensation returns to her arm in a burning rush. Tauriel cradles the bow in the crook of her arm and reaches around to massage the sore muscles. Even after months of practice, she is still too weak to last the two hours of practice she assigns herself each morning.

It is difficult to become a novice once more. When her arms fail and her body hurts…her mind also questions. Can she do this?

"I can do this," her words are flat and unmusical, roughened from anger and exhaustion, "I _must_ do this."

The words ground her, steady her. Ignoring the pain as she draws is impossible, so she lets it become part of her, not an enemy to fight.

She holds the form.

The _thrum _of release is deeper this time. Tauriel feels it shiver through her skin. Her sigh of relief is almost as deep and resonant.

"You should not hold your breath as you draw," Legolas leans his stack of bows against the wall around the field. "Your breath must never falter, or so will your aim."

Tauriel bows in acknowledgement, thankful that the pale light before dawn masks her flush of irritation at being so surprised.

"Why do you not join us? My Father told us to expect you."

"The King is very kind," is all she can say.

"He favors you," Legolas sees through her evasion, "He believes you can succeed."

Tauriel smiles, but it is a hard-edged thing.

"I wish never to disappoint the King. I will join you tomorrow."


	11. XI

Tauriel breaks through the branches above her and the fierce sunlight strikes her like a blow. Air—invigorating as mountain water—chills the sweat on her face and flows down her throat. She drinks it greedily, smiling all the while.

Was there anything in the world to match this sharp, pointed pleasure?

She balances on a branch no thicker than her wrist, spreading her weight between feet and fingers, the way Legolas taught her to do on their first climb. Butterflies blue as the sky above flit away from her grasping fingers; she feels their wings flutter against her skin and stifles a chuckle.

After all, she _is_ being hunted.

It is almost impossible to hear a Mirkwood elf unless he wants to be heard. But Tauriel has sharper ears than most, and she knows exactly which path Legolas prefers to take up this tree. It is her path…or it was until the Prince demanded to know how she always managed to beat him at treetop races.

It gives her pleasure—an inward, silent pleasure—to know there is a secret between them.

And because of this, she knows he will come. Already she hears his boots scuffling at the difficult juncture of two branches.

She could run. The branches here are delicate and treacherous, bending under her weight and constantly shifting with the furious breeze, but she can dance across them and duck beneath once again. She has confounded her seekers thus before.

But it is with another, stronger pleasure that she keeps still and waits.

His strong fingers catch her ankle and use it as a handhold. He lands in a crouch before her, not wavering even as the wind catches him and whips his hair and tunic into frenzy.

Tauriel smiles.

He does too. "You should not make it so easy."

"You have been tracking me since midmorning," she counters, nodding to where the setting sun set the horizon aflame. "I thought the hunt had gone long enough."

His smile grows wider. "If experienced members of the Guard cannot find a recruit after a day's search, they ought to seek through the night."

"But I did not wish to run so long."

"Not even to see the stars?"

"Not even then," she says, though both of them know how she loves a midnight climb to see them wheel a dance across a cloudless sky. "I must be rested for the inspection."

"And your induction."

"That is not certain."

It is not. The King is the only one who can approve her appointment among his elite warriors.

"It is. Do you think he has not seen your progress?"

She laughs, but it is a sound without mirth. "Seen and said nothing. A statue is easier to comprehend than our King."

His touch on her wrist leaves no deeper impression than a butterfly's wing.

"You are not the only one to feel thus."

Tauriel flinches. Her mouth is dry and she has no words.

"Come. The hunt is over."


	12. XII

Tauriel cheers her last two comrades, circling each other warily on the sparring field. The bruise that burns between her shoulder blades stings viciously, but it cannot quell her grin.

Of the twenty-five candidates in the melee, she was one of the last standing.

The exultation of being certain of joining the Guard after over fifty years of grueling work fills her with buoyant joy. She might float upwards, a soaring bird, at any moment.

The ongoing fight grounds her. The speed and skill of the combatants is gripping, and both she and the crowd hang on every thrust and feint.

Finally, Glinis—her braid a golden crown on her brow—darts to the left before dropping underneath Annuneth's guard.

Annuneth groans at the jab to her ribs, and the fight is finished.

Grinning with bared teeth, Glinis raises her sword in salute before bowing low before those who stand applauding.

At the King's raised hand, Tauriel and all the rest fall silent. He looks long at all the candidates who stand beside her; she feels his calculating gaze like a weight on her shoulders.

"Those who join the Palace Guard are the most elite of our warriors. All who fought here today are brave and noble."

A ripple of approval echoes his praise.

"For her victory today, Glinis will be the lieutenant commanding this regiment. Annuneth will serve as her second."

More applause. Glinis smiles and salutes once more, clapping her opponent on the shoulder.

"Now it lies with me to choose their companions."

Names flow past her, around her. There is movement in the initiates as they part to make way for the chosen few to join the lieutenant at the base of the King's platform.

Tauriel is the fifth chosen.

She bows under the raucous noise of the assembly, the pressure of it like standing underneath a thundering waterfall. She grins at the ground, unable to look at the faces above that blur one into the other.

In some small way, this outpouring of approbation washes her clean of the fear and doubt that sullies her after years of grueling effort.

Her skill honors Mirkwood. It honors those who have come before.

But there is still a cloud over her joy.

King Thranduil is for all his people. Tauriel knows this. She knows she is being selfish, even as her eyes seek after his.

There is one thing she must know, something that only he can tell her.

Has she honored _him_?

Her impudence is rewarded. He pauses as he speaks. He looks at her; only at her.

There is one precious heartbeat of silent communion between them.

He does not smile. Indeed, he does not look at her again. His schooled, carefully benevolent gaze always passes just above her as he glances up and down the line of his newest initiates.

It does not matter. She knows—and she _will_ know during every trial and every despair for the rest of her life—that she has.


	13. XIII

It matters not that many of Tauriel's days in the years that follow rarely break from routine. It matters not how often she stands on the ramparts, freezing or burning with the seasons.

She is part of the Guard. Every soldier belongs to her new-found family. Tauriel cannot believe she has survived this long without them. It is difficult to comprehend, but living in isolation so long as a low-born dependent, she had trained herself not to feel the want of true companions.

Now, she has people who trust her, depend on her, like and respect her…

Tauriel would die for every single one of them. The Guard is her life, ever so much more than the gardens or the healing houses were.

She feels herself expanding, growing stronger as her roots sink deep into the stable soil of this life. Her position offers her new freedoms; she may joke with elves of higher station, or share a cup with the Prince himself on occasion.

Her unspoken fear of those above her dissipates as she blooms.

Today, she stands before the throne with the flush of victory still rosy on her cheeks.

It is not her place to speak. She listens with pride as Glinis tells of their victory over a new spider nest and the lieutenant's commendation of Tauriel's suggestion to destabilize the beasts' maneuvering lines from above before the battle was joined.

"We suffered no injuries, your Majesty," Glinis finishes, "but Tauriel's idea made our triumph much easier. I suggest all Captains be informed of the strategy so we can avoid any unnecessary loss of life."

The King's temper—always volatile—is uncertain today. Not once has he smiled during the course of Glinis' account, and now that she has finished he still sits silent, idly running elegant fingers over his scepter of green oak.

"I do not speak to ask glory for myself or my soldier," Glinis speaks hesitantly. One wrong word could summon an angry tempest. "Only to advise the King of sound strategy."

"Thus your words have been taken," his expression does not alter. "Inform the Captains as you will."

They both bow at the dismissal and turn away, heading towards the barracks in the tunnels below.

Out of earshot, Glinis grumbles, "There were six full clutch of egg in that nest. You would think _that _worth something!"

"Well," Tauriel feels obligated to defend him, though privately she agrees, "this was the third nest found this month alone. What is the use of celebrating until we destroy them all?"

Glinis frowns. "What a cheerful thought. Well, _I_ don't intend to wait on my wine. Will you come?"

"Soon," she replies softly.

Tauriel does not often think of her time in the gardens. But she still has nightmares about weeds, strangling new vegetables in their beds. No matter how she slashes and hoes, the creeping invaders return faster than before.

It is a silly thought, but it occurs nonetheless:

Does the King also know this fear?


	14. XIV

The first time Tauriel wakes abruptly in the dark predawn, with a racing heart and a curious trembling flutter in her stomach, she cannot recall her dream. She merely brushes it aside for a nightmare and goes early to the training field. When she arrives, she does not understand why her heart lurches awkwardly at the sight of the Prince, nor why she blushes and bites her lip at his welcoming smile.

In the months that follow, she begins to comprehend. Each time she wakes, be it morning or night, with a pulse beating between her legs and her breath coming short, she wishes for her mother.

Tauriel is not naïve, nor is she over-young; she knows what is happening to her. Elves marry young and forge life-long bonds with their mates. What troubles her is that she does not know for whom her heart is crying. She knows enough of poetry and song to believe that she would know love if she felt it.

Some songs speak of great acts of valor and soaring examples of virtue from lovers, but Tauriel has always thought of love as she saw it between her parents. To her, it was hearth-magic; woven seamlessly into the fabric of her life, enveloping her family in a cocoon of warmth that not even the coldest night could chill.

She had always thought of it as something peaceful; a thing to anticipate, not fear.

But her dreams _are_ frightening. In close darkness, the only light reflects dimly from bright hair and pale skin. In these visions, Tauriel loses her sense of self; she has no body, no physical form. She feels only a breathless wanting that surges in her blood, that tangles her in endless knots around the figure above her.

She might not know his name, but she does know his eyes. They are clear as the blue-gray waters of a mountain lake in the dull light of midwinter. They are unrelentingly hard, flinty as the exposed flanks of the Lonely Mountain.

With neither touch of yielding softness about them, nor hint of gentleness…they frighten her too.

Tauriel has no reason to believe that what she thinks and feels differs greatly from others of her kind. But icy logic cannot withstand the heat of her new-lit passion, and it melts away like a skim of ice caught in a winter's thaw. The drumming insistence of her own body is terrifying, and she has never been thus afraid of herself before.

In the darkness after a vision has passed, her counsel—firmly given though it is—feels flimsy as chaff burning in a furnace. She reminds herself this is merely a trick of the body that has nothing to do with her head or her heart. She tells herself that whatever infatuation she suffers now is natural. It will never be known.

And what she tries to forget—above everything—is that both the Prince and the King have luminous pale skin and shining fair hair.


	15. XV

None of what happened is her fault. Tauriel knows this as she knows her own name. She had fought well. So had all the others. Despite this certainty, Tauriel knows she will never—not for one day, not for one hour—cease to feel bitter, acrid guilt over the three souls lost this night.

What hurts most—more than knowing that Glinis will never again correct her stance, or that the brown-haired twins will never twine their voices in song once more—is knowing that no one is to blame. No one but the goblin-filth who so brazenly defied their borders and danced off into the darkness leaving nothing but a trail of their own dead behind.

Annuneth, her voice rough from the pain of a broken leg hastily field-dressed, stands tall before the King.

"We were assigned to the border, your Majesty. We retired for the evening and set the proper number as guards, but the goblin archers silenced Golradir and Dinendal before they could raise the alarm. The raiders numbered fifty or more. Twenty-two died before the rest scattered beyond the edge of the wood.

"Glinis," she swallows, "Glinis was slain standing in my defense."

"And did you not think to pursue?"

"With three dead and more injured, I did not think it wise."

The King is silent. The entire company—the twelve who survive—waits in disheartened silence for his verdict.

_We grovel before him like whipped dogs,_ Tauriel thinks. _Yet defense of the border is not _our_ task. Had the army been able to replace its lost regiment last spring... _

Yet the whole kingdom remembers Thranduil's rage at the catastrophic skirmish that had cost so many lives. None wish to rouse that anger again.

The King stands. Those who can, drop to their knees. From beneath the loose strands of hair that fall across her forehead like streaks of blood, Tauriel watches him as one would watch a wildcat.

"This appears to me a case of gross negligence on the part of your commanding officer. Knowing how attacks have increased along the border, Glinis should have assigned more than two to the watch."

Annuneth does not speak to defend the fallen, but she flinches as though struck. Tauriel sees a tear splatter on the smooth wood near her boot. She grits her teeth and closes her eyes.

It is not her place to speak.

"As you are no longer a complete regiment and have disgraced the standards expected of the Palace Guard—"

She _must not_ speak.

"You are hereby reassigned to the army. Perhaps my generals have some use for such _soldiers_ as you."

She speaks.

"Forgive me, your Majesty," her heart pounds in her throat and she feels she will choke, "but that is unfair."

Her words echo through a silence so absolute they pierce it like a scream.

She looks up into the eyes she knows are fixed on her. They hold no hint of gentleness.

"Tauriel, remain. The rest of you…leave. Now."


	16. XVI

Tauriel has faced goblins and spiders. She has held wounds together with only hands and words keeping the shadow of death at bay. Friends and family have been cut down before her eyes.

But in the presence of King Thranduil's wordless wrath, she feels as though she has never known fear before.

Her knees tremble. The pit of her stomach is an icy void. She does not dare look up.

Still, she does not wish the words swallowed back. He must hear the truth.

"It is clear I have been too lenient in your education," his voice has withdrawn to a place above anger; he speaks with haughty detachment. "You have been allowed too much freedom, and it has left you with no sense of proper conduct."

He pauses. A hot blush rises to her cheeks as she interrupts:

"Perhaps I have a better sense of proper conduct than your Majesty," she says. "We endured a great loss today. Rather than be allowed the chance to mourn, we are instead accused of misconduct, of incompetence…as though we _wished_ the death of our comrades!"

Dimly, Tauriel knows she is no longer speaking merely for her fellow soldiers. She speaks on behalf of the little lost girl she had been; devastated, bereft…and treated with callous indifference.

She is neither little nor lost. She is brave enough to give voice to the truth in her heart.

"If you would listen to your captains instead of ignoring their concerns," she persists despite the roiling storm she sees building in his eyes, "If you would consider the world beyond our borders—"

"Enough!" he thunders.

Tauriel chokes back her words, subsiding into a smoldering quiet that cannot conceal the rage she could scream.

"You dare speak to me thus? You dare have opinions on matters beyond your station?"

He does not require answers. She gives them nonetheless.

"I have been a soldier in your Guard for many years. If you considered me incapable of forming opinions on the defense of the Greenwood, you should not have appointed me."

"Silence," he hissed, eyes narrowing with contempt. "I will hear no more of your insolence. Go now and wait my judgment."

Her back feels as though it would rather break than bow, but Tauriel manages to bend her stiff neck in the proper obeisance. Turning stiffly and marching like a wooden doll, she leaves the throne room and heads for the darkest corner of the library.

There among her oldest companions, she tries to imagine a life without the Guard. The idea of becoming a healer—even in her old village—brings little comfort. But it is all she can think to do.

Annuneth finds her much later.

"Word from the King," her voice is gentle.

Tauriel climbs down from the window seat. "I will gather my things immediately."

"Why? You are not leaving, surely?"

"He cannot wish me to stay," she manages a chuckle. It tears at her throat.

"Tauriel…he has made you our new lieutenant."


	17. XVII

The pale face of the moon wavers uncertainly in the reflecting pool. Aside from the flickering candlelight in the paper boat Tauriel sets afloat, it is the only illumination in the garden.

Tauriel has long used this place for her purposes; it is designed for glory during the radiant summer months, when flowers burn forth in scarlet and gold. But under the chilly light of autumn's first full moon, it is long abandoned.

Tauriel is alone among drifting leaves, trickling water, and the spice of decay.

She kneels by water's edge and watches the mingled candlelight and moonglow, letting her heart feed on the pain it cannot forget.

In over two centuries, eighty-two lives have been lost under her command.

Tauriel bows her head to pray, in vain hope the dead will hear and understand.

_I am sorry. Forgive me. I would have given my life for yours._

"I had thought to find you here."

"It is no great secret," she raises her head but does not turn, "Everyone knows I do not care for feasts."

"Everyone knows you have other things on your mind on this night."

Legolas kneels beside her; his head bows but she cannot guess his prayer. Death affects him, naturally, but he is so much older than she…he knows better how to bear it.

She wonders whether she will ever learn.

"It is not good to deny yourself present pleasures because of past pains."

"Nor is it good to use pleasure to dull pain's edge," she retorts. "Tonight was the night Orodreth died."

"He was your first."

"Yes," even after centuries, her voice still thickens with tears, "his wife faded with his passing. He had a son."

"A son determined to avenge his father."

"Vengeance!" Tauriel scoffs. "Pray Eru he learns its true cost before—"

She stops. Her doubts are for no one but herself. Legolas is her friend—the truest she has ever known—but he is Thranduil's son first. She has been chastised by the King too often not to be cautious of what reaches his ears.

"Tauriel," he sighs, "this again? True, you are an excellent captain, but none would blame you if you desired freedom from the bloodshed."

"Yes, I am an excellent captain," she shakes her head as her lips curl in disgust, "and became so by stepping into the shoes of the man who died before me."

"That was not your fault."

"It was not," she admits, "but afterwards? I was—I _am_—responsible for everything else."

"What will you do?" he says softly. When he takes her hand she does not withdraw it, but it lies still and limp as a dead thing under the gentle warmth of his fingers.

She knows the answer. She knows it because every time she has considered withdrawing and leaving the bloody task of weathering Mirkwood's siege to another elf, she can taste the King's displeasure like bitter ashes on her tongue.

"My duty," she replies. "I will do my duty."


	18. XVIII

Time passes in its quixotic way, lingering on sorrows and flashing through joys.

Tauriel does her duty.

It matters not whether duty entails inspecting the border, rooting out a spider nest, guarding the King's prisoners, or keeping vigil over a friend's body after his soul has departed to walk the Halls of Mandos.

Tauriel does her duty.

The thought of love fades from her mind, though it never quite disappears. Tauriel loves her comrades, loves them too much to risk any distraction. When her friends marry, she smiles, wishes them joy, and prepares for her next watch.

She faces each day with a content kind of resignation. Hers is no bad life, nor can she imagine a better.

On a day like all others before it, the Prince joins their raiding party as they leave to clear out a recurrent nest of spiders. Hopping nimbly from tree to tree, swapping jokes and songs as they go, Tauriel is more cheerful than usual.

It is not until they fall silent in preparation for their ambush that she notices anything else is different.

They had received reports from the border guard about the dwarves traveling the main road. But the King had been indifferent; a group of thirteen could not do any mischief. Thranduil had ordered them to let things lie, unless the intruders became a nuisance.

With half of them still struggling out of cocoons and the rest clearly under the influence of venom, they are now an irritating nuisance in an already chaotic scene.

Legolas curses under his breath, and spreads the word: "Kill the spiders. Capture the rest."

He is gone almost before finishing the order, sailing to the ground on a thread of spider silk.

Tauriel circles the scene, watching the rest of her soldiers descend to flank the Prince. She counts quickly, eyes narrowing in the dank light.

One is missing.

"Kili!"

The cry goes up after a panicked yell cuts through the dense trees. Tauriel shoots forward to the source of the sound.

She finds him. He is weak and struggling, foot caught in a spider's pincers. Four more are closing in.

She nocks and shoots. Three more.

Tauriel closes with the others, stunning one with a blow to its eyes before slicing deep into the thorax of the other. A few slices deep into the creature's gullet silence its hoarse shrieks forever.

"Throw me a dagger!" the dwarf yells. She does not look; she hears one more arachnid skittering towards him. "Quick!"

"If you think I'm giving you a weapon, _Dwarf_," she grunts the word, turns, and throws. The spider slumps to its knees, almost bowing before him, "you're mistaken."

In the jarring silence in the aftermath of battle he turns to her, panting, filthy, and stunned. He _is_ young. Locks of tangled black-brown hair frame a smooth, un-bearded face. His features are fine; well-shaped nose, narrow mouth.

But what catches Tauriel off-guard are his eyes.

He looks at her like she lit the stars.


	19. XIX

"I thought I ordered that nest destroyed not two moons past."

Something about their Dwarvish guests that has balanced the King's temper on a precarious razor's edge. It is the only explanation Tauriel has for why he summons her in such dudgeon, deep in his cups though it is just past noon.

Tauriel stands firm. It has never been easy for her to withstand Thranduil's frequent biting accusations of incompetence, but the years have done much to strengthen her spirit.

She does not wilt under the glare of his irritation.

"We cleared the forest as ordered, my Lord," her frustration matches his; she paces, "but more spiders keep coming up from the South. They are spawning in the ruins of Dol Guldur. If," and for the first time, she speaks her cherished plan, "we could kill them at their source—"

He does not let her finish. "That fortress lies beyond our borders."

From the quick lowering of his heavy brow, she might as well have spoken of setting fire to the Greenwood.

"Keep our lands clear of those foul creatures; that is your task."

"And if we drive them off?" her younger self would have said _when_, "What then? Will they not spread to other lands?"

"Other lands are not my concern."

Simple words, simply spoken. But they sink like arrows in Tauriel's heart.

Thranduil speaks true; he has no care for other countries, other peoples. Middle Earth could be shaken to its roots, rent asunder by war's upheaval—

"Fortunes of the world may rise and fall, but here in this Kingdom," he might have read her thoughts to finish them so well, "we will endure."

She swallows and bows curtly, using the moment to grit her teeth and glare at the ground. _Is it not_, she thinks, _a King's duty to see how the smallest events in distant lands may echo in his own? _

How can Thranduil fail to understand what she knows in her marrow?

The elves of Mirkwood cannot withstand the evil that is rising—not within its borders, and not without.

Argument neatly put aside and too wearied for more, Tauriel turns to leave him to the oblivion he seeks. Yet as she does, he speaks again.

"Legolas said you fought well today," he smiles, but it does not reach his eyes.

Her heart freezes with the chill of his next, gentle words.

"He has grown very fond of you."

Legolas has never been over-careful in his attentions to her, so much is true. Yet they are of such different stations…even if Tauriel took them to mean anything, surely _he_ did not?

Feeling as though mincing over treacherously thin ice, she replies, "I do not think you would allow your son to pledge himself…" she cannot finish. The mere thought throws her into confusion and she sinks into silence.

"I would not," he agrees, turning to pour another glass. Even so, Tauriel sees his hooked sneer.

"Do not give him hope where there is none."


	20. XX

Even had Tauriel been in a suitable mood for the celebration that eve, the King's words rest uneasily in her mind. She does not put off her warrior's weeds; she goes instead to the dungeons and takes Amrod's watch herself.

At first the prisoners had shaken the bars, shouting curses spiked with Khuzdul. But they rest peacefully now, rough snores stifled by heavy beards.

Tauriel's quiet footsteps echo, mingling only with the trickle of the waterfall that runs a life-giving vein through the Palace. The silence helps settle the uncomfortable roil in her stomach; she breathes easier, freed from Thranduil's gaze.

Yet she is observant. A crystal clink sounds from one of the cells; movement in the shadows.

"The stone in your hand," she looks down at the dwarf, restraining memories of his words, Legolas' reaction, and her own feelings about both, "what is it?"

"It is a talisman," he rolls the stone in one thick-fingered hand, "If any but a dwarf reads the runes on this stone, he would be forever cursed." He lunges forward and she flinches.

So he would play that game? Tauriel stifles a faint sigh of disappointment; distraction would have been welcome tonight.

She has looked away when his words recall her.

"Or not," he chuckles and turns the stone. "Depends on whether you believe in that sort of thing. It's just a token. My mother gave it to me so I would remember my promise."

Unbidden, memories of her own mother surface…along with Tauriel's own forsaken pledges to her.

"What promise?"

"That I would come back to her," he replies. Humor fades as he carefully traces the runes.

Tauriel knows not from whence he comes, but she knows where he is bound. Perhaps he knows how little likely it is that he will survive the dragon's wrath, even should Thranduil ever let them leave.

His mother was right to ask a promise, but he was wrong for giving one.

"Sounds like quite the party you're having up there."

"Yes," Tauriel pauses, listening to the scraps of song and laughter, "It is the Feast of Starlight. All light is sacred to the Eldar. The wood elves love best the light of the stars."

"I always thought of it as a cold light," he says quietly. "Remote and far away."

"It is memory," she exclaims. "Precious and pure."

He is young, perhaps too young to understand. His family yet lives; compared to flesh and blood, what use is starlight?

She nods towards his clenched fist. "Like your promise."

Their eyes meet; he is still with dawning comprehension. Then his eyes spark and his face beams.

"I saw a fire moon once. Red and gold it was, it filled the sky…"

Tauriel falls into the stream of his words, forgetting herself in the flow of his story. She sits to be level with his eyes; smiles as he laughs, exclaims at the dangers he relates.

And for the first time in years, she also forgets the King.


	21. XXI

The battle rage that burned in her blood during the skirmish at the water gate still sets her veins aflame as she watches the prisoner—who had dared raise a hand to the Prince—squirm in his grasp.

It is a hard thing to obey Legolas and leave it alive when Tauriel can still see the orc's poisoned arrow speeding towards his heart in her mind's eye.

Harder especially, since she had been too slow to help the dwarf. Kili; she will use his name. Despite his fault in escaping the King's dungeon, he had fought well to free his comrades from being skewered, like cornered rats, by the orc pack.

But Thranduil would have answers. Tauriel too is eager to hear them.

"Such is the nature of evil," he begins, words measured and heavy, "out there in the vast ignorance of the world it festers and spreads."

_Just as I have warned you it would_, Tauriel thinks. _We cannot exist in this world and remain untouched by its troubles._

"So it ever was," dark memories shadow his words, "So will it always be. In time, all foul things come forth."

"You were tracking a party of thirteen dwarves," Legolas jerks the orc up by its matted hair, "Why?"

"Not thirteen," it croaks, grinning. Black blood oozes between bared teeth, "not anymore. Our shafts are mortal."

Poison. Tauriel's heart seizes within her; outwardly she struggles to maintain her calm. Kili—brave, funny, young, _so young_—would die choking.

"I do not care about one dead dwarf," and Thranduil truly cares not. Tauriel knows this as surely as she knows she does. "Answer the question."

"I do not answer to dogs!" it spits, lunging against the Prince.

Tauriel's worn patience unravels. She feels it tear like gossamer as she brandishes her knife. "You like killing things, orc," it is not a question, "You like death. Then let me give it to you!"

She is fast; Thranduil is faster.

His barked command of "Enough!" draws her up short; but for a wild instant, she thinks to disobey him.

Kili's sacrifice deserves vengeance, whether the King will give it or not.

When he orders her away, she looks up with smoldering hate. Her tongue presses hard against the back of her teeth, begging for permission to speak the truth, to spark some fellow feeling from a King whose life it should be to protect those lesser than himself.

Tauriel does not say a word. She sees the warning written in every line of Thranduil's face.

So she draws herself upright; bows. Ignores the spitting snarl of the orc who mocks her by his life.

And she leaves.

Bow on her back, blades in her hands, Tauriel marches straight through the Palace gates. The moment she is out of sight of the Guard, she breaks into a swift run, trees and sunlight smearing before her eyes in a green-gold blur.

Since Thranduil will not act, she will…come what may.

This is her true duty.


	22. XXII

She stands in contemplation of the Lake, wondering how best to cross it. She could swim the distance, though none too quickly. And speed is essential; Kili has a day remaining, if that—

Noise creaks from the bushes behind; not the idle susurrus of wind-swept leaves. Something large moves purposefully between the trees, stalking her.

She draws as she turns, dropping to one knee, and finds the Prince's arrow locked between her eyes.

"I thought you were an orc." Relief surges through her, not unmixed with chagrin. The thought of Kili has occupied too much of her attention.

"If I were an orc," he replies, returning the arrow to his quiver, "you would be dead. You cannot hunt thirty orcs on your own."

"I am not on my own."

"You knew I would come," Legolas says, a pleased—if abashed—grin lighting his face.

Tauriel answers his smile, but says nothing. In truth, she had _not_ known. How should she? He is his father's son; at Thranduil's order to seal the borders, he should have been first to obey. The idea that he would defy his father for her sake…

He has never done such for her before. Defended her in battle, of course. Soothed her hurts, yes. He has even been a patient ear in which to pour her frustrations over Thranduil's often contradictory commands.

But this? Tauriel does not know what to think. It is long since her foolish youth, when she might have cherished such a pointed sign of affection.

"The King is angry, Tauriel," he goes on, lightly leaping the bloody carcass of slain deer to look down on the Lake with her, "You have betrayed his trust. Come back with me. He will forgive you."

She swallows hard, the thought of the King's disappointment searing her throat like acid. For centuries, his approval has been her only goal…her only reward. The idea of his forgiveness is a powerful lure, but Tauriel knows better; the King's grace once lost is gone forever.

She has disobeyed him, forsaken her post. She cannot go back.

So she says, "If I returned now, I would not forgive _myself_. The King has never allowed orc filth in our lands, yet he would let this pack cross our borders and kill our prisoners…and our comrades."

"It is no longer our fight," he speaks Thranduil's words, but Tauriel sees doubt in the sharp lines around his mouth.

"It is our fight," she shoots back. How easy it is to contradict him! How often had she swallowed her true sentiments before! "With every victory this evil will grow. Would the spiders be now so strong if we had acted decisively from the start?"

He does not answer. The smooth planes of his face grow restless shadows as he allows the truth into his mind.

"Tell me, my friend," and they are true friends now; she speaks to him as nothing less than an equal. "When did we let evil become stronger than us?"


	23. XXIII

She finds him. She saves him.

Power flows through her hands, summoned by the prayers she offers for mercy on his poisoned flesh. A portion of her soul seeks out his beleaguered consciousness, and catches hold. Tauriel can feel his strength as he fights to follow her back into the light.

And so he does.

When his eyes slide open, her relief is too great for celebration; her heart too full of mingled regret and relief for smiles. It is all she can do to keep tears from her eyes. So she looks away as the other dwarves revel around him, teasing in their coarse, rough way.

There is much to be done in the aftermath of the orc attack. She busies herself righting chairs, clearing rubbish, grinding a fresh _athelas_ poultice, and boiling bandages for his dressing.

Though among the mixed company of elderly dwarves and fledgling humans, she fades from notice as easily as she could wish. But the privacy of indifference gives her no peace; Tauriel cannot rationalize the sacrifices she has made. Legolas is long gone; to what fate, she knows not. Did she betray him as she betrayed Thranduil? Do both father and son hate her for a snake they nurtured at their hearth, only to be left reeling from the poison of her treachery?

She looks over her shoulder to where Kili lies pale and quiescent on the table, a bowl of nuts serving as his pillow. For a moment, she sees him as Thranduil must; an insignificant, fragile being, doomed to die and be forgotten with the turning of the years.

For a moment, her heart whispers: _he is not worth this._

Then his eyes flutter, and he murmurs her name.

"Lie still," she replies, reaching out to his questing fingers but drawing back at the last moment.

"You cannot be her," his gaze is still weak, bleary, and he looks right through her even as he says, "she is...far away from me. Far above me. She walks in starlight in another world. It was only a dream."

Tauriel's heart leaps, but not with the warm rush of love. If she spoke now, it would only be to tell him that she is already sorry for the hypocrisy of her thoughts; she is no better than he, different creatures though they are.

But he seeks a different assurance:

"Do you think she might have loved me?"

She cannot answer. Perhaps she does not know what love is, but she has an idea of what love is not. She looks at Kili and the future they might have, and though she sees the possibility of great joy, she also sees the certainty of bleak sorrow. This vision is not born of fear; Tauriel knows better.

Kili would strive to make her happy, but true contentment comes from within. Despite her pride in saving his life, Tauriel is anything but content.

"Lie still,"

His eyes close at her command, and she turns away.


	24. XXIV

They pass through darkness, fire, and water. The air fills with smoke and screams; in the chaos, Tauriel loses all thoughts of the future. All that matters is passing unscathed beneath the dragon's wings, the wings that sweep poisonous air over the trembling surface of the lake. She must get them through this inferno.

She does. Some brave soul sets an arrow to the beast, plunges it down to burn among the ruins of Laketown. She merely keeps them together as they flounder at last onto the banks, dripping, cold, and crying. The children wail for their father, their cries few among many.

Kili smiles up at her, trusting as a child. She knows what he is going to say.

When the words leave his mouth, she feigns ignorance. True, she does not understand much Khuzdul, but his joyful tone and the hope on his face leave little room for misunderstanding. Tauriel's purpose has ever been to avoid giving pain, but she cannot do otherwise.

"Kili—"

"Tauriel."

She cannot recall ever feeling so afraid to face the Prince before. When she turns, his face is still and stolid.

He is judging her; she deserves to be judged. Tauriel does not speak to defend herself; she has no right to do so. A brief encounter—even with one so different from his kind as Tauriel is from hers—should not have kept her from her place at Legolas' side.

"I cannot," she answers Kili's unspoken question. His fading grin is a knife in her stomach. She cannot face his pain, cannot be near him and withstand the temptation to heal the hurt.

The Prince has no time for this. The dwarf is beneath his notice; he speaks only to her.

This time, she follows him away and does not look back.

Despite her discipline, it takes her a moment to hear Legolas' account of his battle with Bolg. But she understands that the situation by the Lonely Mountain requires his father's attention. They must return at once.

_They_.

No matter what choice she makes, she will cause pain.

"Legolas—"

"My Prince,"

They both start as Feren, the King's valet, rides through the stubbly trees along the shore. He fixes them with a weary gaze; clearly he has ridden hard to bring this message.

"Your Father commands your presence," he speaks only to Legolas. Tauriel bows her head, accepting the slight. It hurts, but she knows why she is thus ignored.

Legolas nods. "Come, Tauriel."

She does not follow. Feren does not move.

"Tauriel is," he hesitates under Legolas' glare, "banished."

The Prince does not argue, but Tauriel sees his back stiffen with indignation. "If there is no place for her," she wonders wildly if she is truly hearing this, "there is no place for me."

Legolas turns, and for the first time he asks instead of orders: "Will you come?"

Her heart is too full for words; she nods.

There is no chance for forgiveness now.


	25. XXV

In one of the strange, deserted eddies that battle leaves behind, Tauriel stands, waiting. Her heart hammers, her lips tremble, but her hands are sure. When it becomes necessary—as it will—there will be no hesitation in her fingers when she nocks an arrow.

She had followed Legolas to the dread lands of Angmar. Despite her soul crying against the darkness, the heavy air acrid with old blood, rusted metal, and fetid smoke, she had gone willingly. And when he had spoken of his mother's death in that fell land, she had listened as she always had.

Yet it was not only for Legolas' loss that she grieves. The habit of centuries is too hard to break; when she thinks of the Queen's violent death, she cannot help but think of the husband she left behind, in sorrow corrosive as venom. Surely _this_ sheds some light on the King's harsh disposition, his fickle temper?

Tauriel knows well the secret shame of survival.

Yet she will not let her sympathy—her pity—stay her tongue or her hand. Not this time. In silent obedience she has followed, listened, fought, denied. No longer.

So when the King rounds the corner, his retinue scurrying in his wake, she stands firm as a rock in face of a tidal surge.

"You will not turn away," she tells him, "not this time."

The King has no time for grace. She can see the exhaustion behind his eyes and in his bearing. Yet it startles her when he snarls:

"Get out of my way."

"The dwarves will be slaughtered," she swallows hard, thinking and trying not to think of dark hair and wide, hopeful eyes. She cannot bear to imagine those eyes glazed and unseeing.

"Yes, they will die," he sneers. "Today, tomorrow…one year hence, a hundred years from now. What does it matter?"

Her rage sweeps over her, cleansing and bright as a forest fire. When her arrow finds its target between the King's cold gray eyes, that internal flame burns righteous.

"You think your life worth more than theirs?" she asks, fury lowering her voice and making her words hiss between shaking lips, "When there is no love in it?"

Tauriel leans forward, "There is no love in you."

Her bow snaps in half so suddenly it stings her fingers, that tiny pain forgotten as cold steel chills her throat. The King's control is absolute; she feels the blade steady against her pulse though his face twists with rage.

"What do you know of love? Nothing! You think you love that dwarf?"

"No!" she counters, as fear of his hatred, of his misunderstanding, infuses the word with desperation. "But I cannot let him die! Not if I can save him!"

Thranduil's face does not change, but she feels his hesitation in his fingers. His sword no longer presses.

"I give you leave to go where you will. But do not ask it of me. I cannot."


	26. XXVI

Does the battle still rage, or has victory stemmed the tide of blood that tinges the air with salt? There is a ringing in Tauriel's ears, a veil before her eyes, and she does not know. The danger of her position, the threats that might still lurk, mean nothing anymore.

Nothing matters, save the insidious growing chill in Kili's broken body. Beneath her fingers, the fingers that have helped heal thousands across the centuries, he is stiff and cold.

In defiance of death, Tauriel cradles him with numb arms, cradles him as his mother must have, rocking him gently, sheltering him from the snow-frosted rock. Her knees and shoulders groan with the effort, but the pain merges with the needle-throb in her temples, the bone-deep bruises, and the gnawing ache of her heart.

Amid this whelming flood of grief, what is one more pain?

Tauriel sobs, crying as she has not done since childhood. All the deaths under her command, all the lives destroyed while she survived only to witness more…how is it that the passing of a dwarf, a stranger, can so shake the roots of her control?

Her throat is raw as she murmurs, "Why does it hurt so much? Please," she begs, "please take this from me."

There among the frozen peaks there is no sympathetic ear to hear her cry, and only the sharp, whistling wind to answer. The King and his soldiers are gone. The dwarves are dead. Even Legolas, who followed her into the mountains, has been parted from her in the chaos.

So Tauriel starts when a voice breaks the wailing howl of the wind.

"You cared for him," the King speaks softly, without trace of disdain. "Such pain should not be ignored."

He stands still as the stones that surround him, pale hair and silver armor shining stark against the dank gray of the rock. But his eyes blaze blue, the living blue of running water, clear skies, and forest flowers. Despite her shame in weeping before him, Tauriel cannot look away.

"I cannot bear it," she tells him, eyes stinging as tears rise anew. "Please," her voice fails and her plea goes unheard.

"You must bear it," he drops to his knees beside her, close enough to feel his radiant warmth, "You will. You have strength beyond most. In time, you will feel it again."

His words steady her. Her surging agony does not abate, but his belief in her strength keeps the waters from swamping her. In the cold, her tears grow slowly dry.

"I want to bury him," she says, simply. Leaving Kili here, to the ignominy of birds and beasts, or the decay of time, is unthinkable. Perhaps she cannot give him the rest she would want—a peaceful repose amongst green growing things—but the dwarves have their own funeral rites, and Kili deserves those honors.

"We will carry him," Thranduil agrees, "Come."

Perhaps the King will not take her pain. But he helps her bear it. 


	27. XXVII

Time passes. Life flows on, no matter the obstructions in its stream. In the chaos that follows the battle, Tauriel stumbles back to the Greenwood, unsure of her place and purpose. But she is still a Captain, and the war has stripped the army of many. She helps fill the empty spaces, train the raw recruits, and bury the innumerable dead.

Yet the skin of her old life fits her awkwardly. The King has not spoken to her since their exchange over Kili's body; his silence as to her position makes her colleagues treat her carefully. They fear to draw close in case she is cast out. And Tauriel's heart is still hollow with loss. In her isolation, she feels an orphan again: unwanted, unloved.

So it is with a mixture of trepidation and eagerness that she receives a summons to the King's presence.

Feren leads her through a labyrinthine passage above the throne room, farther and higher into the Palace than Tauriel has ever gone. The valet's doorway gives them entry into the King's private suite.

There Feren leaves her, uncertain and unaccountably shy, before a Thranduil she has never seen before.

He sits on a low couch on a wide balcony, high enough that the stars are visible over the treetops. By this pale light, his hair shines brightly as the moon, contrasted sharply against the soft black robe he wears. Without jewels, staff, or crown, he is regal still, but bare. Vulnerable.

He stands, and Tauriel sinks to one knee. Only then does she notice he is barefoot as well. Her dry throat spasms as she tries to speak.

"You knew my son." It is not a question, but it asks something from her all the same.

"I did, your Majesty," she waits.

"Why did he leave?"

"I—I do not know."

"You are lying," he says, and sits again. "Come."

At his curt command, she rises and sits on a footstool next to the couch. Meeting his eyes is impossible. She stares over his shoulder to the shadowed forest beyond.

"Can it be that you now fear to speak the truth?" there is a laugh in his words, "You did not when you threatened my life."

"I only meant…" she pauses. "Leaving the dwarves and humans to their fate would have been wrong. The Prince saw that as I did. Perhaps—"

"Perhaps he could no longer be son to a coward."

She stares, openmouthed, horror overriding common sense. But there is no protective hauteur in his face. Only weary resignation.

"I _am_ afraid, Tauriel. A greater darkness approaches. I do not know how to face it." He swallows; his eyes break from hers. "You called me loveless. But will you stay?"

Tauriel knows she ought to consider. There are other places to live besides the Greenwood. But she knows, somehow, that there is no life for her away from him.

Her decision was made long ago.

"My place is here," she says, pauses. "With you."


	28. XXVIII

The forces of evil rise against the Greenwood with all the fury and inevitability of a spring tide. From Dol Guldur come endless swells of orcs mounted on slavering wargs, while the spiders multiply and spread so thick through the trees that the lesser plants of the forest starve for want of sunlight.

Tauriel knows her fight is merely a small struggle in a conflict raging through Middle Earth like a cancer. That knowledge—that pain and strife is greater elsewhere—does not make their share of war easier. Her comrades are mowed down like harvest wheat, and she must fill her ranks with green troops, untested and untried. They die in turn, and there is no time to mourn.

Yet Tauriel does not despair. Though shadows abound on all sides, she has an inner light that shines with the peerless brilliance of the Evenstar. That light has never wavered nor dimmed, not once since that strange night of revelations where she sat with the King and began understanding the secrets of his closed heart.

The intimacy that sprouted between them since that time was a mild shock to the nobility at first, but Tauriel suspects it was more a surprise that Thranduil had chosen to unburden himself to _anyone, _much less a woman of such inferior birth.

In the privacy of her own thoughts, Tauriel is almost grateful that the constant battles distract anyone from discovering her close-guarded secret. At best, those sympathetic to her would pity her deep-rooted love for the King as a weed that could yield no fruit, while those who thought her overreaching would scorn her company.

At worst, she might lose Thranduil's confidence entirely.

No. Her love is much better kept where it is; it warms her, strengthens her, and harms no one. And if there are nights she cannot sleep for thinking of his soft, private words, Tauriel can pretend that she is not harmed either.

Through the years, the Captain and the King twine together like vines, consulting together before every battle, standing together during every charge. She guards his weaker side while he is swift to counter every blow she cannot see.

And at the last, the enemy is driven back to its stronghold and Dol Guldur falls, engulfed in flames.

Their losses are heavy, so there is no immediate celebration. Working among the wounded, Tauriel bandages cuts, draws poison, and sets bones. It is nearly dawn before she sees the King again.

The fire rages, ash and sparks spiraling up into the pale sunless sky. Thranduil is a tall silhouette against the grim scene, unflinching even as Tauriel approaches.

He speaks without turning. "You once told me to extinguish this evil at its source. Had I but listened to you then—"

"You could not have foreseen this," she counters, softly. "Today is for joy, not regrets."

Thranduil does not reply. But when Tauriel's fingers brush against his, he allows himself comfort and does not draw away.


	29. XXIX

Months later, on a day of no particular importance, Legolas returns.

Tauriel is among the last to hear. Though their enemy's back has been soundly broken, rogue packs of orcs are panicked and searching for anywhere to make a last stand. So when Tauriel returns from patrol, she does not know what to make of the buzz of activity that pervades the sedate pace of the Palace.

It is only when she sees a hairy, barrel-chested _dwarf_ seated at the Prince's side—dirty as a potato and belching sonorously around a mouthful of the same—that she understands the ruckus.

She also nearly laughs aloud; when Legolas sees her, he sends a helpless half-shrug her way even while rising to embrace her. He can certainly feel her shaking shoulders even as she masks the ironic glint in her eyes.

A public feast allows them no time for anything more than meaningful looks and raised brows. Half the kingdom has heard of the Prince's return, and everyone is eager to share in the joy—and the wine—that flows at the news. The atmosphere is infectious; even Thranduil's reticence is overcome.

Once Tauriel plies him with enough drink, that is. She makes a point to seek out the King and replenish his glass whenever he drains it below half.

Despite the crowds that surge between them, Tauriel can feel Legolas watching her whenever she and Thranduil are close. It wrong-foots her, makes her feel guilty despite never having sinned. So as the celebration winds down and the stars grow bright in the coal-black sky, Tauriel summons her courage and approaches the Prince.

"I see I need not have feared leaving you to my father's care," he says, sipping a final glass of wine.

Tauriel's buoyancy shatters, fragile as crystal. For the first time she realizes that Legolas truly _had_ abandoned her. Had Thranduil not taken her in, where would she have gone, alone in the wild?

"No," she replies, looking out over the silver-tipped leaves, "The King has...been kind to me."

There is silence between them, though not the companionable silence they once shared. Too much has changed—both within and without—for anything to be truly the same again.

But he still knows her. "You love him."

There is no defense against the inevitable truth. "Yes."

It is barely a whisper.

Silence again.

"You must not think—" she is desperate, "He has never, _could_ never forgot your mother. He does not feel—"

"I do not blame you, Tauriel," he interrupts. There is an emotion on his face that is not compassion, or blame, or scorn, but might perhaps be a mixture of all three. "I pity you."

She accepts this. "Believe me, this was not my intent. I do not even know _how_ it began. All I know is...it gives me hope."

"I understand," and now she hears sorrow in his voice, "but I pity you nonetheless."


	30. XXX

The sea is a marvel; a study in oppositions. Together organic and geometric, its undulating waves heave against the shore, glinting with golden planes of light that seem nearly solid in the midday sun. Its scent is simultaneously sharp and sweet, lingering in the nose as a tantalizing perfume. The cry of gulls is a sound both lonesome and chattering as the birds swoop and flock around the boats that cluster along the pier.

Tauriel stands high above the scene, in a ruined watchtower of crumbling stone and rotted wood. Every sight fills her with strange sensations. How is it she has never been to the ocean, never heard these sounds or smelled these scents, yet everything she sees fills her with welcome familiarity?

The sea calls to all elf-kind in the end. It is their gateway to paradise, the way they reunite with all those whose souls have departed Middle Earth. In the Undying Lands there will be no sorrow, no pain...none of that which has made Tauriel's brief existence so grim.

The other elves bustling along the pier are joyful, eager. In her heart, Tauriel feels pleasure...but not the buoyancy of exuberance. It is difficult to remember that she will see her parents again, when the knowledge of what she will lose is so present.

"Why do you linger here alone?"

The sea air has worked a marvelous change in the King. His porcelain skin is flushed, his eyes are brilliant as the sparkling waves, and he is nearer a true grin than she has ever known.

He is so beautiful.

Tauriel feels her pinched lips and bloodless cheeks, and knows that she is not.

Thranduil steps closer. "What is in this land that you regret leaving behind?"

"I have no regrets," she lies, "None that will not be cured when we sail."

"Think you that after all this time I know you so little?" She swallows; already he is too near for safety. Her heart, usually under such good regulation, is swelling so in her chest that she cannot breathe.

"Tauriel," he speaks so gently, so kindly that tears well at the sound, "Unburden yourself to me."

She must speak if the King would have it so. "Surely," she croaks, swallows again. His figure blurs and wavers, "Surely you know my heart."

His hands are soft and warm where they rest on her shoulders. If she dared—if she only dared!—she would rest her cheek there.

His lips brush her forehead and she starts, lightning-shock jerking her rigid. _Impossible_.

But he whispers against her hair, "As I do my own. There are no secrets between us any longer."

At his admission, all fear leaves her. The silent call of her soul has been heard and accepted.

She blushes furiously as she meets his eyes. So instead, she takes his hand and presses a kiss to it, knowing even as she does that he can feel the blistering fall of her tears.


End file.
